Well Bob Geldolf I did like my Monday

I always remember when the Boomtown rats brought out their song in 1979 I don't like Mondays and it has stuck with me ever since.

 Monday was the first day back to school, which I hated to go to, after the weekend on the farm it was like being in a prison and so unnecessary, such a waste of "farming "time. My uncle left school at 14 and he didn't like school either. He didn't like singing lessons so the teacher used to let him sharpen pencils in the porch of the school. It did him no harm at 92 years old, 2 weeks before he died he was still writing cheques and keeping the farm books .Could add up and take away all the VAT in his head without a calculator .He did admit when it was taking 17 and a half % off an amount he had to concentrate. He used to keep both the accountant and the solicitor on their toes. I always felt comfort that before he went to Heaven that he had done a quick trip round the world to the Kremlin and the White House  and to other parliamentary homes of the World and back to give them a talking to in the Houses of Parliament before he laid to rest . He was interested in state affairs and politics and people said he would have made a barrister but he chose to work the land with his beloved horses.

Anyway back to my Monday.

I actually had a very nice day and hope you did too.  I spent the afternoon out with my metal detector in the sunshine. Okay I didn't find anything but I live in hope.

 I hadn't been home long when I got notice from Cooper Wilson that he had a swarm of bees hanging off his garden table. As he is just a few miles away and these bees were very considerate as they were so easy to get. While the bees were settling into the box I took to bring them home in I took a look at Coopers' donkey she is lovely. It is always nice to catch up with Coops I have known him a lot of years and he never changes .He is a wizz with horses and rather like a horse whisperer I could have sat in his garden all evening  chatting about old times. He always has good stories to tell.  Please look at his website www.cooper-wilson.co.uk and this is an extract from it .. 

I have competed in Point to Point races, Team Chases and Cross Country events and have been breaking horses and ponies since I was 12 years old.

This experience has given me a deep understanding of horses and how to work with them, something that cannot be learnt from a book or course. I believe that I have served a lifetime apprenticeship with horses and that they have allowed me to develop a gift that I can now begin to repay. They continue to teach me about life in my interactions with them. I always give horses the choice and work with what they offer me. In this way they learn to trust me, and allow me to work with them to heal.

I hope that this site will broaden the way in which you think about, and interact with your horses and other animals.

I believe that horses and other animals we come into contact with often offer us everything they have unconditionally. Sometimes this is unintentionally abused due to sheer ignorance and as a result the animal suffers. We owe it to all animals to constantly strive to understand them better, to learn all we can and make their lives as stress-free and harmonious as possible.

Adding bee keeping to my skills

What a B day .... I started off enjoying my bees .Looked after them like children, tucked them up in bed ...well their hive in Autumn. Fought off the wasps and vermin that tried to eat their supply. In Winter fed them and even on Boxing Day would go with candy to feed them . Dont laugh it was true. I have gone up trees and into some of the most precarious places to retrieve a swarm.
Then I got stung and again and again and 3 years ago ended up at the hospital with sepsis  . It was getting too regularly an occurrence. For some reason they like me or not .
So as it is Jack who eats the honey and I dont really like the taste of it he said he would help cant be too much to do ... He has soon got fed up with these time consuming little creatures and what really did it for him he got stung on the chin and what a mess he was.
So it was a joint effort . In my bee hey days not too long ago I had over a dozen hives .The trouble is you have to go into the hives on a hot day when they are all flying to see what is going on and even though I wear a full suit I wear extra clothes underneath as the suits these days are so thin they can sting straight through.Wellington so they dont get up my trouser legs and long thick leather gloves . So I feel I am in a walking sauna and when you lift a box full of honey at a back breaking angle you are looking at probably 3 stone in weight.
Anyway we have 2 hives now .And here you will see them busy and buzzing and there is Jack walking down the path he has had enough of them .So when you dip your knife or spoon  into that honey jar just think of how labour intensive it is .

Honey bees must gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey. One bee would therefore have to fly around 90,000 miles - three times around the globe - to make one pound of honey. The average honey bee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.